# Putting the “F” word in a thread title **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [May 4, 2020, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108 "2020-05-04T05:20:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/1 "2020-05-04T05:20:40Z")
In a current thread in GQ, someone says: > [@UltraVires](#): > > I put an asterisk in the title per the board preference… (They wrote “F\*ck”) I’ve been here a while and I don’t remember a “board preference” against just writing out “fuck”. I have no need or desire to do so but I’m curious, is there a rule about it? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/2 "2020-05-04T06:00:16Z")
There’s no general rule. We do ask posters to recognize that some people read the board from work, and it’s considerate to avoid putting NSFW words in thread titles in most forums. (If you’re reading the Pit at work, you’re on your own.;)) Even so, in the thread in question, I would have let “Fuck” stand in the title, since it was integral to the question. (Writing “F\*ck” doesn’t make much difference.) On the other hand, I recently edited “motherfucking” out of a thread title because it was completely gratuitous and had nothing to do with the question. So it’s a bit of a judgement call. I would advise keeping obscenities out of thread titles unless there’s a good reason for it. Likewise, we don’t require posts to be suitable for Sunday school. On the other hand, obscenity filled rants should be confined to the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/3 "2020-05-04T12:46:57Z")
Yeah! Listen up, Motherfuckers! ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/4 "2020-05-04T13:05:29Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > There’s no general rule. We do ask posters to recognize that some people read the board from work, and it’s considerate to avoid putting NSFW words in thread titles in most forums. Ah, that makes sense. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/5 "2020-05-04T13:38:46Z")
I’d prefer to avoid it in Great Debates and Politics & Elections but I’m not dogmatic about it. Even Captain America started cussing, after all. My reasoning is more ‘best foot forward’ than bluenose. God knows I cuss and I don’t generally feel a need to intervene when others do. But I think in the fora I moderate, in theory we’re supposed to be a bit high brow (I know, I know, work with me here) and I’d like to think we can at least make the impression that we’re trying to do it properly. But I can’t imagine sanctioning someone for it provided it’s not gratuitous or somehow occurring regularly. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/6 "2020-05-05T21:58:10Z")
I remember years ago [starting a thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=325296)about placenames and product names that sound funny in other languages. I gave it the name **Fucking and Windpassing** , these being the names of two villages in Austria. (There are actually several places in Austria and Germany called Windpassing). It was changed, much to my disappointment. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/7 "2020-05-05T22:07:02Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > I remember years ago [starting a thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=325296)about placenames and product names that sound funny in other languages. I gave it the name **Fucking and Windpassing** , these being the names of two villages in Austria. (There are actually several places in Austria and Germany called Windpassing). It was changed, much to my disappointment. That was in 2005, by a mod who has since retired. Since that I count 14 instances of “fuck” or “fucking” in threads titles in GQ that were not edited out. There are plenty of instances in other non-Pit forums as well. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/8 "2020-05-05T22:21:08Z")
IIRC, back when Ed was going insane there was a crack-down on language usage in thread titles. Haven’t seen much evidence of it since he went away. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/9 "2020-05-05T22:31:49Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > IIRC, back when Ed was going insane there was a crack-down on language usage in thread titles. Haven’t seen much evidence of it since he went away. You remember wrong. I was a mod at the time, and although Ed imposed language restrictions in the Pit there weren’t any for thread titles elsewhere. There isn’t evidence for any change in the use of “fuck/fucking” in titles in GQ either after the Pit changes, or after Ed left. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/10 "2020-05-05T22:50:49Z")
As you will. My memory is Swiss cheese anyway. But I do recall someone objecting to the word “Fuck” in thread titles and quite a bit of discussion and such about it. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/11 "2020-05-05T23:09:11Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > As you will. My memory is Swiss cheese anyway. But I do recall someone objecting to the word “Fuck” in thread titles and quite a bit of discussion and such about it. I find no such discussion in ATMB. There was complaint by a (now banned) poster about a moderator telling people to “Knock it the fuck off,” and other threads were closed for gratuitous use of the word in the title. On the other hand, a poster told a mod to “lighten the fuck up” in a thread title in ATMB after Ed’s Pit restrictions, and that was allowed to stand. So I suspect that your “recall” is actually some kind of conflation of unrelated discussions. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/12 "2020-05-05T23:22:01Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I find no such discussion in ATMB…So I suspect that your “recall” is actually some kind of conflation of unrelated discussions. [On the Use of Rough Language in the Title](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=410122&highlight=fuck+title) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/13 "2020-05-05T23:35:49Z")
HAH! I knew I didn’t kill **that** many brain cells! ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/14 "2020-05-05T23:52:01Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > [On the Use of Rough Language in the Title](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=410122&highlight=fuck+title) Thanks for the link. However, that discussion took place two years before Ed’s Pit restrictions, and the upshot of the discussion was that no change needed to be made in restricting language outside the Pit. > [@On the Use of Rough Language in the Title](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-rough-language-in-the-title/393809/78): > > I’ve put an announcement in all forums, but meanwhile we still only have four emails from people thinking that a change would be good. > > Please do NOT email me if you oppose change. The first layer of investigation is: are there a significant number of members who would like this change. If (as I suspect) the answer is no, then we don’t need to worry about the second step. > [@On the Use of Rough Language in the Title](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-rough-language-in-the-title/393809/82): > > The decision of the Moderators: > > As a practical matter, the word “fuck” does not show up often on the main SDMB page. It appears pretty frequently in the Pit “last post” listing, but that’s at the bottom of the list. On most screens, the Pit listing isn’t visible unless you scroll down. > > The word does appear often on the main Pit page, but not in other forums. Anybody who calls up the Pit page at work, where “fuck” or worse appears frequently, deserves what he/she gets. > > We are willing to protect people from links to pages that are not workplace safe, but that’s a different animal. Such links involve pictures and graphic displays that are quite noticable, even for a boss wandering by at a distance, rather than just text which is not readable from across the room. > > We do find random profanity irritating, and we might change our approach if it were to start appearing frequently and everywhere, that is, in all forums. However, barring something like that, we don’t see any reason for change. Those who are viewing the SDMB in a place where the word “fuck” itself is potentially awkward should not go to the Pit until they’re in a less restrictive environment. > [@On the Use of Rough Language in the Title](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-rough-language-in-the-title/393809/93): > > Sorry for any lack of clarity on my part, **Nic2004**. We did not limit the words in question to “fuck,” it’s just easier to deal with in explanation. In the thread title count, we included all variations on “fuck” (fucking, motherfucker, thumb-fucker, fuckster, etc.) which was the most common of the harsh words found. There were around five or six “fuck-related” words in titles per page, and then the occasional “cunt” or “shit” or other harsh word, rarely more than one additional such harsh word per page. > > Hence, to make it clear what we were dealing with, we tended to focus on “fuck” as the most notable offensive word. We didn’t want to start dealing with administrative details (which words are harsh? is there a list of specifics? is it OK to say “penis” if you’re asking a GQ? Is “crap” OK? … ) We were trying to first deal with the major issue: do we want less profanity in thread titles? and we found that the most common profanity was “fuck” so we focused on that. > > We found that there really wasn’t a problem outside the Pit, that the use of “fuck” in titles was rare and the use of other potentially aggravating words was even rarer. > > IF we had decided that we do want to discourage profanity in thread titles in the Pit, then we would have proceeded to figure what words are potentitally offensive, etc. But since we never got there, we didn’t need to spend lots of time debating/discussing irrelevancies, if you follow me. > > On a sociological level, I suspect that “fuck” has become an all-purpose word, with a variety of meanings and levels. “Shit” (for example) still has the limited meaning of feces, and so doesn’t come up in a thread title often. “I got treated like shit” is pretty much the only use, compared to myriad uses of “fuck.” > > And the question of what you would want a child to see, reading over your shoulder, is up to the parents. If you don’t want your child seeing such words on your computer screen, then don’t visit the SDMB when they’re around. In other words, the policy decided on then was the same as I’ve described here. Those words are not prohibited, but they shouldn’t be used gratuitously. > [@silenus](#): > > HAH! I knew I didn’t kill that many brain cells! I’ll grant that you remembered that such a discussion took place, but not the reason for it, the outcome, or the resulting board policy.😉 ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/15 "2020-05-06T00:02:39Z")
Close enough! ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/16 "2020-05-06T10:59:36Z")
Am I wrong in remembering there is a blanket ban on saying “fuck you” anywhere including the pit? There was once an elaborate set of rules about which naughty words were OK and which were. I can’t be bothered to keep abreast of that kind of petty rules-mongering, so I just generally avoid the most egregious ones. But I remember “fuck you” was over the line at one point. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/17 "2020-05-06T12:04:08Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Am I wrong in remembering there is a blanket ban on saying “fuck you” anywhere including the pit?. There used to be one. It was introduced several years ago. Everyone thought it was a bad idea. Then the rule was abolished. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/18 "2020-05-06T13:44:11Z")
Specifically, once Ed was out of the picture - we love Ed, trust me - the moderation staff held a discussion about the rule and relaxed it leading to Miller’s epic sticky thread in The BBQ Pit. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putting-the-f-word-in-a-thread-title/853108/19 "2020-05-07T16:51:32Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Am I wrong in remembering there is a blanket ban on saying “fuck you” anywhere including the pit? > > There was once an elaborate set of rules about which naughty words were OK and which were. I can’t be bothered to keep abreast of that kind of petty rules-mongering, so I just generally avoid the most egregious ones. But I remember “fuck you” was over the line at one point. IIRC it was considered over the line when I got pitted. Then all of the sudden it was “Oooh, is he going to retaliate?”